


In Another Life

by Liyyah



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I never know wtf to tag things, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 17:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12512376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liyyah/pseuds/Liyyah
Summary: Seven years ago Donna walked out of Harvey’s life. He hasn’t seen her since. Until now.





	In Another Life

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a brief idea but it ended up getting away from me.

Sniffling, Harvey pushed his shopping cart as he scanned the items on the shelves.

Grocery shopping wasn’t really his thing. He had survived most of his adult life on takeout and leftovers which, when he thought about it was pretty damn unhealthy.

Harvey was actually a good cook and he enjoyed the rare occasion that he made dinner for himself. But he didn’t exactly have a lot of time because of work.

However, he had been sneezing quite frequently during the past week and as much as he ignored Mike’s looks and denied Louis’ accusations that he was contaminating the firm, he couldn’t lie to himself any longer.

He was getting sick.

And he needed some good old homemade chicken noodle soup.

But first, he needed to find the ingredients to make his chicken noodle soup.

This wasn’t his usual supermarket and his foggy sick brain was making it hard to locate anything in this unfamiliar territory.

He had been on the way back to the firm from a meeting when he felt a sore throat coming on and upon catching sight of the store, ordered Ray to stop.

Now, he desperately searched for that _one brand of seasoning_ that was absolutely necessary for his dish.

Suddenly, he felt something bump against his leg.

Looking down, he found himself staring at a little redheaded girl.

Briefly, his throat closed up at that particular shade as he was reminded of someone else.

“Sorry,” she said quietly, her hazel eyes wide as she took a step back.

She appeared to be around five or six and on the verge of the tears.

“Are you alright?” Harvey asked softly, kneeling down to meet her gaze.

The child nodded, her small hands balled up in fists as if she was holding on to whatever semblance of bravery she could muster.

“Are you sure?” he questioned with raised eyebrows.

She looked at him for a few seconds as she seemed to think about a response.

“I can’t find my mom,” she finally whispered, her chin quivering.

“It’s okay,” he quickly reassured her. “I’ll help you find her. I promise. We can go talk to one of the workers and get them to make an announcement. Sound good?”

She nodded furiously and Harvey took that as a good sign.

“So what’s your name?” he asked as they started walking. “I’m Harvey.”

“I’m Sophia,” she replied.

“That’s a very pretty name.”

“Thank you,” she beamed and Harvey couldn’t help but smile at her expression.

The most experience he had with kids was with Marcus’ daughters and even that was limited. They only loved him as much as they did because of the presents he bought them whenever he visited.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like children. Quite the opposite in fact. He just wasn’t _very good_ with them.

“Sophia I gotta warn you I’m coming down with a cold so you probably shouldn’t get too close,” he told her.

“It’s okay. Mommy says I have a very strong immuno system,” she said.

“I think you mean immune system,” he corrected gently.

“Oh yeah. Anyway there was this one time that daddy got sick and it was really bad and then mommy got it but I didn’t. They were throwing up and everything. So yeah I’m strong.”

“I bet you are,” he responded with a hint of amusement.

For someone so small she sure had _a lot_ of confidence.

Just like someone else he once knew.

As if on cue, his train of thought was interrupted by the very woman herself.

“Sophia!”

The all too familiar voice jolted him and all of a sudden he was hearing her tell him goodbye for the last time again before she walked out of his life forever.

“Mommy!” Sophia exclaimed, running into the arms of the person who used to be his everything.

 _Who still was_ if he was being honest with himself.

His entire body was frozen as he watched Donna embrace her daughter with a ferocity he had never seen before.

_Her daughter._

_Of course._

A part of him had guessed the minute he laid eyes on the little girl but he had quickly shoved it aside because that was a door he didn’t want to open.

 _Too late now_ that voice inside his head murmured.

“Are you okay?” Donna asked frantically, letting go of Sophia long enough for her to thoroughly examine her from head to toe.

“I’m fine mom,” she giggled.

“Are you sure?” she repeated and Sophia sighed in response.

Harvey’s lips quirked up at her exasperated look. He surmised that the kid was tired of hearing those words.

“Yes I’m sure,” she said, reassuring her mother as Harvey did with her.

It was then that Donna looked up, noticing him for the first time.

Her own eyes widened in surprise as she took him in.

“Harvey,” she uttered, her voice a near whisper.

The whole world fell silent when she said his name.

Just two syllables and he was hit by a tidal wave of emotions. He was drowning and there was no one to save him because she wasn’t there anymore.

She wasn’t his anymore.

_She never had been._

And he had no one to blame but himself. He had always been a goddamn coward.

“Donna,” he said, allowing himself the luxury of letting the word fall from his lips.

“You know each other?” Sophia asked, looking between the two.

“Yeah,” Harvey answered, breaking out of the spell cast by the woman who still had his heart. “Your mom and I used to be friends.”

“We used to work together,” Donna added, her gaze still fixed on his.

“Cool!” she said to her mother. “He was going to help me look for you. I know I’m not supposed to talk to strangers but...I was scared..”

“Oh honey,” she said affectionately, tearing her focus away from him as she shifted her attention to her daughter. “It’s okay.”

“You have a very strong daughter,” Harvey said, repeating Sophia’s words from only minutes ago.

The tiny redhead flashed a grin that Harvey had seen countless times before on Donna and something about it tugged at his heartstrings.

“She is,” Donna said proudly. “She just has a bad habit of wandering off.”

“That’s what kids do,” he shrugged. “I used to scare my parents all the time.”

“See mommy? It’s what kids do,” Sophia repeated and Donna shot her a glare.

It took every ounce of energy for him not to burst out laughing.

“Somehow I’m not surprised that you were a problem child,” Donna quipped drily.

“Oh and you were perfect?”

“I was born perfect Harvey.”

He snorted in response and this time he was on the receiving end of one of her glares.

_It was almost as if nothing had changed._

The harsh look soon faded away however, and they were left simply staring at each other again.

He let himself memorize every inch of her, committing all that she was to memory. From the hair that was shorter since he last time he had seen her to a new shade of lipstick he’d never seen before to the black flats she wore instead of the heels he was used to.

She was different yet the same.

There was still that spark in her eyes that he loved and her lips still turned up in that familiar way and fuck she was _Donna_.

She was the ghost that haunted the hollow walls of his heart.

“It was good to see you again,” he said softly, piercing the silence because he was shattering with each second that passed.

“It was nice seeing you too,” she replied, blinking as if she too had become lost in another time or place.

“Goodbye Donna,” he said, words that he had never spoken seven years ago.

“Goodbye Harvey,” she replied, echoing her former self.

“It was nice to meet you Sophia,” Harvey addressed the young girl with a smile.

“You too!” she said excitedly. “Bye!”

She waved wildly as she walked away and a chuckle escaped him as he waved back.

A bittersweet feeling consumed him as he watched the retreating figures of both mother and daughter.

In another life maybe he would have left with them. Maybe they would have all headed home together. Maybe he would be the one to drop their daughter to school in the morning and maybe he would have impulsively taken the day off so he could spend it in bed with his wife.

Maybe in some other universe, he didn’t let Donna go.

Maybe he fought for her. Maybe he was good enough. Maybe he _tried_.

Because god knows he didn’t on this earth.

For a moment he caught a glimpse of everything that could have been his.

He wanted to hit himself for being such a goddamn idiot. He let the best thing that ever happened to him slip through his fingers.

 _No he pushed her away_.

Then he didn’t do a thing as she left.

Fingers clenched around his throat, squeezing and stealing all the air from his lungs.

Just like that all of the old wounds he’d haphazardly patched up had been ripped open again.

He saw her and he fell apart. But he’d been falling apart since the moment she walked away.

_Hell even before that._

It had been a downward spiral since she kissed him.

When he blamed her for putting him in a position to cheat. When he called her selfish and a thousand other bitter words that he didn’t want to remember. When he couldn’t forgive her.

But then he _did_.

Only he didn’t realise until he was already holding her resignation letter in his hands.

He remembered how he ran. The way he raced out of the building as if his life depended on it because it did.

_She was leaving him._

_It was all his fault_.

He remembered showing up at her apartment and knocking relentlessly until she opened the door.

“ _What is this?” he had asked, barely breathing as he held up the letter he still grasped._

_“You know what it is,” she replied quietly._

_“Donna please.”_

_Two simple words because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. His brain and body and everything was shutting down on him._

_It wasn’t enough._

_“You need to let me go Harvey.”_

_Her eyes were glassy and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him._

_He needed her to look at him._

_“I can’t.”_

_“Yes you can. You just don’t want to,” she sighed._

_Something sparked within him then, a match lighting somewhere deep inside him that quickly set him ablaze._

_“Of course I don’t want to,” he said fiercely. “Donna I need you.”_

_“No you don’t Harvey,” she countered as she finally met his gaze and the sadness that he saw in her expression broke him._

_Every sentence that had been forming in his mind died on his tongue._

_He was the reason for her pain._

_He hurt her over and over again._

_“This is the best thing for me,” Donna added and he wasn’t sure which one of them she was trying to convince. “For both of us.”_

_**Not for me** he wanted to say._

_Yet he remained silent because that was the moment he realised that she deserved better._

_She deserved more. More than him._

_He had always known._

_But he had been putting himself over her from the day they met._

_He couldn’t do that anymore._

_“If this is really what you want...”_

_“It is,” she said firmly._

_He nodded, ignoring every instinct that screamed at him to fight for her. To beg her to stay. To just do something._

_“Goodbye Harvey.”_

_She gave him one last look while he stood there like a fool, saying nothing._

_He couldn’t find his voice with the lump in his throat._

_All too soon, she shut the door, leaving him standing cold and alone out in the hallway._

He knew she had moved a little while later, after an offhand comment made by Rachel and he had received an rsvp when she got engaged.

He never answered because he _couldn’t_ but she was Donna so she sent an invitation anyway. He had stared at the thing for what felt like hours before deciding that he would go. No matter what had happened between them they still had over thirteen years of history together.

_She still meant everything to him._

Yet on the morning of the occasion all he could think about was her lips on his and her arms around his neck and he knew he couldn’t watch her marry another man.

So instead he spent the day getting drunk and wallowing in self pity.

Donna stopped trying to reach out to him after that.

Thus, she faded into the background of his life, a constant presence in the back of his mind.

He could never fully let her go.

All of a sudden, Harvey felt _tired_.

He was filled with a need to get out of here.

Operating on autopilot, he pushed his cart towards one of the many cashiers, just getting whatever he had already picked up.

He didn’t really care about his soup anymore.

So he went home to an empty apartment surrounded by silence, the walls threatening to close in on him.

Donna had built a life for herself. She had a family now.

But for him, she was his family.

And she was irreplaceable.

However, despite how miserable his own life was without her, it didn’t matter.

_She was happy._

That was all he ever wanted for her.

It was what she deserved.

So Harvey crawled into bed at the end of the day, alone as always but on that night, he took some comfort in the fact that _she_ wasn’t.

Donna Paulsen had found what she was looking for.

She found her _something more_.

To Harvey, that was more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I have exams to study for and chapter 5 of my college au to finish and yet here’s this thing that happened out of nowhere. Thanks for reading. Comments and kudos very much appreciated.


End file.
